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review The
radio star Old
man and the sea
review Professor of International
Relations at SOAS, Stephen Chan, considers Khalid Hosseini’s, The Kite
Runner and Mohsin Hamid’s, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, to be “Western
Works of Fiction,” which use the “Bitter Islamist Hero” as their
protagonist. He considers them to be “novels with art-house pretensions…
which strain so much for effect that they resemble dissertations for a US
Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing” Chan contends that the
Islamic heroes of both books are only believable to Western audiences because
they are Western/American rather than Pakistani/Afghan. He also considers
them “derivatives of their authors.” In particular he argues that,
“Hamid’s hero/narrator/sole-spokesman on behalf of other characters is
like Hamid, a Princeton graduate, business and financial consultant and from
Pakistan.” At the time of writing,
Chan may not have been aware that Hamid’s authorial skills have also earned
him the merit of being an opinion columnist who has written on subjects as
diverse as Pakistan’s economy too. Perhaps, one day, his expert
understanding of the complex mind of the fictional fundamentalist will lead
him to become advisor on counter terrorism for the reluctant Imran Khan. Chan, however, is
unconvinced by Hamid’s “Islamic” character that is supposedly
anti-American and of fundamentalist bent. Chan argues that the character, as
portrayed by the author is, “in thoughts, phrases and conceits”, neither
Pakistani nor “Islamic” in any way to begin with. Chan questions why both
novels have therefore, been such successes. His suggestion is that the theme
of nostalgic reconstruction of childhood landscapes and its losses are
appealing themes for Diasporas in a new culture. Many Bollywood films and
events have captured this market for its lucrative returns. I read Hamid’s earlier
novel, Moth Smoke, during a brief stint overseas and read it with all the
powers of recollection that expatriate Pakistanis can call upon in order to
desperately remain connected to the homeland. My reading through the fog of
nostalgia was very different from friends who were reading from within
Pakistan. They remained less taken in by the romance of fiction. Many of them
were impatient with the forced literary tool of transposing Mughal characters
and intrigues onto contemporary Lahore-based relationships. Still, the
familiarity of social context made the novel a believable read in terms of
its fictional characters. The trouble with The
Reluctant Fundamentalist is that the reference point shifts to America and
this makes it appealing to Western audiences. Chan suggests this is because
Western audiences love these superficially Islamic heroes because they are in
fact, Westernised, Americanised, more “us” than them, more Metropolitan
than Other. In contrast is Miljenko
Jergovic’s believable book, Sarajevo Marlboro, where as Chan points out,
Islam is only in the backdrop of the novel. This author writes from the heart
of the siege of Sarajevo, while Hosseini and Hamid write from California and
New York. The Islam of the latter novelists’ is an intellectual construct.
However, the pain caused from religious politics has no redemption in
Jergovic’s case where Islam is merely a brooding setting, not an “obvious
theme highlighted by clever repartee of self-revelation as in Hamid’s 209
page essay.” Chan is right when he says,
“Hosseini’s kite-running imagery against the backdrop of the Afghan sky
was irresistible to Hollywood” but as he says, “that is its great fault
as well: it was Hollywood even before it was acquired by Hollywood. It was
written for acquisition. It was merchandise.” In a crushing summary, Chan
compares the three books thus; “Hosseini’s hero gets his redemption.
Hamid’s insufferable character at least departs the book with the
possibility of his being shot. Jergovic’s characters just suffer without
end.” Is it coincidence, or by
virtue of location, that Hamid’s essay, rather than Mohammad Hanif’s
political mystery novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes, draws the attention of
Hollywood? Both “Pakistani” novels are written close in time, but while
the former is American in theme and character, the latter is distinctively
Pakistani where Islam forms a milieu rather than the main leitmotif. It was perhaps, the
Pakistani artists’ community which first discovered that post 9/11,
regardless of talent, the branding of Islam as exotica is invaluable to sales
but the market is still the West. Also, The Reluctant Fundamentalist allows
for a cast of Hollywood and expat Pakistani actors with some sprinkling of
marginal native characters thrown in for authenticity. Hanif may have to wait
for the attention of “special interest” media houses with brown casts. The argument is not just
about whether post-9/11 fiction should be realistic or non-opportunistic.
When one selects the “real” theme of Islam then, inevitably, readers veer
towards interpreting such work as social realism. In great fiction, the
boundaries between fiction and realism can be both pertinent and blurred, as
Salman Rushdie will testify. Those who fail to be convincing about either,
often hide behind the notion that their work is just fiction or even, magic
realism. Even then, the writer needs to at least be able to make the
characters credible or indeed, intertwine the relevance of the theme of
Islamic identity and characterisation. As an example, Amy
Waldman’s recent novel, Submission, defies the notion that authentic
insight into Islamic characters may be only available to the Muslim creative
mind. Her novel is narrated through half a dozen voices, several of which are
Muslim. This span avoids the reliance on any single character to deliver any
ultimate truth or finality of journey. Instead, the novel does
succeed as a work of social realism because even while some of her characters
are Muslim migrants, the novel sets them firmly in the identity frame of post
9/11 America and the debates that were, American. This allows Waldman to
bring to surface the disconnected and marginalised views and voices in their
struggle for supremacy, power and representation. The novel is as much about
the role of the media in constructing post 9/11 identities, prejudices,
binaries and the polarisation of views and civic ideals. Most of all, the
novel is a sensitive acknowledgement of the realistic issue of the silencing
and duping of the masses who have been fed the dumbed-down debates on Islam,
freedoms and Western values over the last decade. She does all this through
her characters, not thematic manipulation. Having said that, fiction
is not the only genre guilty of such commoditisation of Islam as a source of
career growth. The disciplines of art, music, fashion, banking, the academy
and the field of social-development are equally and increasingly magnetically
drawn to the lucrative possibilities of deploying Islam as a branding
strategy. Therefore, over the last decade, we have seen an explosive use of
Islamic identity for sale in galleries, as a financial strategy that
guarantees redemption, as a substitute for cultural or regional identities,
and in political manifestoes proclaiming either liberation or oppression.
Everyone is on the bandwagon, so why not fictionwriters, Hollywood and
Bollywood? The
writer is an independent researcher in social issues
The
radio star
“Love your voice” was
the first lesson taught to Raza Ali Abidi, when he joined the BBC World
Service in 1972. Twenty four years on, at the time of his retirement, Abidi
had reached a different conclusion: “Love your audience.” Through his soft, resonant
and clear voice, he generously showered his love for a quarter of a century;
on the receiving end were as many as twenty million listeners of the BBC Urdu
Service. His recent book Radio ke Din (The Radio Days) is a story of the same
love affair. “I was with the Urdu
Service of the BBC for nearly a quarter of a century,” writes the veteran
broadcaster. “It was undoubtedly the most enjoyable part of my life. Each
morning I would leave for my office looking visibly happy, much to the
amusement of my kids. Even if unwell, it never occurred to me to stay at
home, as I could not imagine missing the delight of work for a single day. So
intense was my involvement in broadcasting that I would fall ill only on the
weekends, when I had to stay away from Bush House.” This intense involvement in
work soon bore fruit and Abidi’s name became synonymous with quality and
excellence. He was given the most prestigious programme Anjuman based on
listeners’ mail. People from all walks of life wrote to BBC and Anjuman
soon became a true mirror of life in the subcontinent. Abidi was also entrusted
with the weekly production of Sub-Ras, a programme of literature, music and
entertainment that monitored the pulse of cultural life in India and
Pakistan. On the front of current affairs, during his long and eventful
career, Abidi led his listeners through the vicissitudes of Z.A.Bhutto’s
rise and fall, Ziaul Haq’s plane crash, Benazir Bhutto’s exile and
re-emergence, the Kargil debacle and Pervez Musharraf’s coup. In his own judgment,
however, the news and current affairs were never his forte. He excelled in
features and documentaries. His own favourites have been Kutub Khana, a long
running radio documentary about the Urdu books of the 19th century, carefully
preserved in the India Office Library of London, the British Library and
elsewhere; Jarneli Sadak, the history and culture of the Grand Trunk Road;
Sher Darya, a journey along the path of the Indus River, and Rail
Kahaani, a train journey from Calcutta to Peshawar, to explore the great
railway network in the subcontinent. During his research on the
old Indian books, he came across a rare copy of
Jawaher-e-Manzoom’ (Pearls of Poetry). It was actually an Urdu
translation of “Selections of English Poetry”. But the real importance of
this 1849 book is that the manuscript was sent to Mirza Ghalib for an
overview. How did Mirza take it? What, if any, changes did he suggest? This
is still an unexplored subject: an open invitation to the Ghalib enthusiasts,
and a challenge to our poetry researchers. The journeys on the G.T.
Road and along the Indus path enabled him to meet hundreds of people, study
their lives closely, share their joys and sorrows, and thus draw a realistic
picture of this society for his radio listeners. From a common wage-earner on
the road-side to a highly skilled scientist, from a young high school student
to an octogenarian research scholar and from an innocent villager to a shrewd
landlord, Abidi met people of all hues. Part of this journey was
planned but the unplanned segment had its own wonders and surprises. It was
during this casual wandering that he came across the tallest man of the
world. This chance encounter with Alam Channa enabled him to produce one of
the most interesting episodes of his radio series. The tall man was getting
married the very next day. Abidi succeeded in getting the rare access to his
would-be wife and very skilfully elicited her excitement…and fears! No wonder Abidi’s
greatest worry on his way back was: “what if I’m robbed on these far off
country roads? Will I be deprived of all these tapes carrying hundreds of
voices?” Fortunately enough, Raza Ali Abidi did not attract any robbers
even at the most likely places. He always came back to London with hundreds
of tapes and produced for his listeners some of the most exciting episodes in
the history of Urdu broadcasting. All the field recordings
were done on audio-cassettes, later transferred to quarter-inch tapes. Abidi
cherishes the days of tapes and cassettes. He misses the solidity and
tangibility of those devices and writes in his memoirs: “ I had become
highly proficient in radio production, having gained the necessary skills in
audio-recording and editing. We would record and edit on magnetic tape, using
a sharp-edged blade and splicer to cut out all unwanted noises. Today you
record digitally, and the sound waves can be seen on your computer screen.
It’s much easier now to get rid of the unnecessary bits on the stroke of a
key. Today’s broadcast journalist looks at the old tape-cutting devices as
primitive and perhaps crazy. But, to tell you the truth, nothing could be
more enjoyable than cutting and joining the tape manually.”
Old
man and the sea Odyssey
of a Sailor Odyssey of a Sailor is an
interesting autobiography of a Navy man considering the fact that Syed Zahid
Hasnain takes the reader around the whole world through the sea. Hasnain had
a passion for travel and a greater one for the sea, both of which led to him
joining the British navy. It is said that there are three environments whose
call is irresistible: the sea, the desert, and the mountains. The author has,
luckily, lived in all three. Hasnain has a sharp memory
and writes down minute observation of things and incidents to recall in his
glorious forty one years of service in the Navy from enlisting in the British
Navy in 1935, serving both in the Royal Indian Navy and the Pakistan Navy and
subsequently retiring in 1972. The book provides
interesting aspects of Pakistan and Pakistan’s early problems in a simple,
uncluttered style. The author notes that initially the partition of India in
1947 was viewed as a friendly division of a family, and that he had, in fact,
opted for Pakistan provisionally. Hasnain writes about the
culture and history of over a dozen cities he has lived in, including Simla,
Jullundur, Babur, Maler Kotla, New Delhi, (which was a small city at that
time) Calcutta, (which was centre of sports in India) and other cities abroad
where he travelled for professional duties. Odyssey of a Sailor also
tells about the history of major cities of India and Pakistan. As a small
excerpt about Karachi illustrates: “Karachi, originally a fishing village,
had under the British administration grown into a cosmopolitan city with
Parsees, Hindus, and Christian-Goans being the predominant communities.” A major part of the book,
tells the sad story of the Indo-Pak partition and the incidents and problems
related to newly born Pakistan. The most important observation of Hasnain is
about the sacrifices of the Muslim minority in other provinces; those who
remained settled in India but are not recognized for their efforts in
Pakistan’s history. At one point he writes:
“The creation of Pakistan was also an act of unprecedented sacrifice by the
Muslims of minority provinces, who were at the forefront of Pakistan
Movement. Knowing that the creation would not benefit them in any way as they
would be left behind in India, they nevertheless sacrificed their own
interests for the benefit of the Muslims of the majority provinces. An
unmatched noble act of self denial and sacrifice! I don’t think we in
Pakistan appreciate the great sacrifice of the Indian Muslims. But for their
struggle, there would have been no Pakistan.” Hasnain’s love for his
old home in India and his memories of India, however, haunt him throughout
the book. When he visited India later as Pakistan Navy Officer in his career,
he recalls: “It was the most enjoyable and memorable experience. They all
were so kind, hospitable and friendly, and I made some good friends even at
this old age. There was genuine affection for us and we all were most
touched. This just goes to show how useful people to people contacts are
between the two countries. I am still in touch with my new friends.”
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